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T he Rijksmuseum is celebrating its bicentenary with "The Glory of the Golden Century," a sweeping survey of 17th-century Dutch art that is one of the largest shows it has ever mounted. With more than 300 items, half from the museum's own rich holdings and the rest lent by more than 70 museums and private collections around the world -- including those of Queen Beatrix and Queen Elizabeth II -- the exhibit (up until Sept. 17) proudly claims to contain at least one characteristic work by every important Dutch artist of the era. There are also three Vermeers, five Frans Hals, seven Ruisdaels and 23 Rembrandts, including, of course, "The Night Watch," the centerpiece of the museum's permanent collection and of this splendid show.

As the 17th century dawned, the northern Netherlands were just winning their independence from the Spanish Hapsburgs. By the century's end, the Dutch Republic had lost its economic wars to the English and French. But in the intervening years, Dutch ships ruled the seas, their East and West India companies controlled international trade, and Amsterdam became the economic center of the Western world. In Utrecht, Delft and Haarlem too, the population boomed, the burghers grew rich, and both fine and decorative art were in great demand. "Paintings hung everywhere," wrote historian Johan Huizinga, "in the town halls, the civic-guard headquarters, orphanages and offices, in the drawing rooms of patricians' homes and in the best rooms of townspeoples' houses."

Curator Jan Piet Filedt Kok estimates that thousands of painters were active during the century, producing several million paintings. Many of the best are unquestionably on show here, well-displayed on walls freshly painted in colors straight out of Vermeer: teal blue, chartreuse, yellow-gold, crimson and dark carriage green. Sculpture, furniture and decorative objects are scattered throughout the show's 23 galleries, which are arranged chronologically but also divided into thematic groups with such user-friendly titles (in Dutch and English) as "Extravagantly Decked Out" and "Whims and Drolleries." Drawings and prints are presented in a separate section (until July 16 only).

If a few individual artists seem to be missing altogether (Cornelis de Man, Hendrick van Vliet, Daniel Vosmaer) and a few others a bit short-shrifted (Pieter de Hooch, Emanuel de Witte), there is certainly a sampling of every important trend and genre, from the intriguing play with perspective in church and house interiors to the new realism in landscape and portraiture.

"A Varied Beginning" sets the stage with a pair of St. Sebastians, the first an effete Mannerist fantasy of 1600 by Joachim Wtewael, the second Hendrik Ter Bruggen's tense, close-up Caravaggist vision painted 25 years later. Caravaggio's influence is also evident in the works of Ter Bruggen's Utrecht colleagues, including "The Young Flute Player" by Judith Leyster, the only woman painter in the show.

"New Faces 1600-1640" features exceptional portraits by Thomas de Keyser and Werner van den Valckert, along with Frans Hals's big "Marriage Portrait of Issac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen," a rare double portrait of a smiling couple in a garden strewn with symbols of love (peacocks), fidelity (thistles and ivy) and fertility (a fountain). Given the elegant Spanish finery worn in these portraits, they easily qualify as "Extravagantly Decked Out," but that category is reserved for the short-lived genre of "merry companies" -- groups of dandies and damsels in lavish silks and brocades with immense ruffs or stand-up lace collars, as in Willem Butewech's "Elegant Couples Courting" and Dirck Hals's "Garden Party."

Still lifes, both "Deceptively Realistic" and "In the Lap of Luxury," include opulent bouquets by Ambrosius Bosschaert and Abraham van Beyeren's truly "Sumptuous Still Life" of lobsters, oysters and fruit. On the other hand, one "Seemingly Everyday" interior is Jan Steen's cautionary tale "In Luxury Beware," in which mother dozes, baby whacks a pearl necklace with a spoon, little brother smokes a pipe, puppy munches on the table, and teenagers tipple and flirt while a pink piglet roots at pretzels littering the floor.

When it came to group portraits, Rembrandt and Frans Hals were undisputed masters. Rembrandt's "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" is here on rare loan from the Hague's Mauritshuis. Painted when Rembrandt was only 26, it paved the way for his later grouping of "The Syndics," displayed here in perfect tandem with Hals's more freely painted "The Regents of the Old Men's Almshouse in Haarlem."

Rembrandt and Hals share the limelight with Bartholomeus van der Helst in the showstopping central gallery, where the museum's three immense fancy-dress group portraits of "Militia Companies" have been brought together for the first time, to stunning effect: van der Helst's "The Celebration of the Treaty of Munster at the Crossbowmen's Headquarters," Hals's "The Company of Captain Reynier Reael and Lieutenant Cornelis Blaew" (finished by Pieter Codde when Hals had a dispute with the militiamen), and "The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem Jan Ruytenburch," known as "The Night Watch."

All told, there is too much here to absorb in a single visit. The "Delft Light" gallery alone contains: Carel Fabritius's unique "Goldfinch," the three Vermeers ("The Milkmaid," "The Little Street" and "The Glass of Wine"), an interior and a garden scene by de Hooch, and a wonderful pair of small interiors by Gabriel Metsu, depicting a young man writing a love letter and a young lady reading it.

There are also landscapes spanning the entire century, dramatic seascapes by Willem van de Velde Elder and Younger, and haunting children's portraits by Gerard Ter Borch and Johannes Verspronck, along with a pair of life-size female figures in bronze from the tomb of William the Silent in Delft, incredibly ornate silver pitchers and platters, immense faience tulip vases and a 3.5-meter-tall copper candelabrum. The drawing and print show is a small treasure in itself, with Hendrick Avercamp's vivid pen-and-gouache "Fisherman by Night," David Bailly's "Self-Portrait" by candlelight, an impressive body of work by Willem Buytewech and a dozen Rembrandts, including a strikingly modern sketch of his beloved "Hendrikje Sleeping."